Job Discussion Forums

[naturegirl321]

I've been told that students behave "badly". What does this mean: Rampant cheating, changing grades, cell phones, not doing homework, all of the above?

Any advice on how to use discipline in the classroom in the Middle East? Or will trying to discipline students cost you your job?

And about how many students are in an average class?

[scot47]

Homework ? What planet are you from ? As for the others, YES,YES and YES

[naturegirl321]

No HM then? Ok, easier for me

I guess teaching in the ME isn't as easy as I thought it was.

[basiltherat]

Yep. It requires a whole new mindset.

Best
Basil

[veiledsentiments]

[sheikh yer money-maker]

...and system rules are to be posted on the wall, but not enforced. Rules on the wall look good to visiting guests who are unaware of the Man behind the Curtain. Expect a certain percentage of your "colleagues" to be constantly on the make to get out of teaching, so become informants to whose who might be able to elevate them out of the classroom.

Also, "teachers" who are looking for some sense of "job security" will pander something awful to their kids (in reality, that's what they are) and not take attendance, letting them eat and drink during lessons until they nearly choke on the unbelievable mass of "food" that they shove through their pie-holes, etc...just to get that "good teacher" evaluation by their astute charges. As soon as "management" leaves the learning environment, they forget that there, most often, is a direct and inverse relationship between a teacher actually doing her job and the "good teacher" rating one gets by pandering to the little darlings, both male and female.

"Management" tend to "kick the can down the road" until they can "throw it under the bus" to be crushed.

Other than that, life is good!

[eha]

[johnslat]

Dear sheokh,

Exactly what I was thinking - guess it's virtually universal, just a difference of degree, maybe.

Regards,
John

[Cleopatra]

My experience has been in Saudi Arabia, but from what I've heard, teaching environments are pretty similar all over the Gulf region.

The best way to prepare yourself for teaching here is to think of your students not as the young adults they physically appear to be, but rather as 14 year olds. That is about the level of intellectual and psychological maturity you can expect from them - most of them, at any rate.

Students here are very rarely unpleasant or outright rude, but they are very much lacking in discipline. Strolling into class late, playing incessantly on their mobile phone(s), neglecting to bring a pen and paper.... these things and more are par for the course here. At some stage you'll probably also have to deal with students complaining that they don't 'like' their grade and trying to negotiate - sometimes quite persistently - to have it changed.

On the plus side, students can also be charming, generous and with a great sense of humour - something you will need if you are not to be driven mad by their antics. VS is absolutely right when she says you need to pick your battles carefully. If you get annoyed about every ringing mobile or every late arrival, you'll burn yourself out very quickly and make an enemy of your studnets and upper management who seek to pander to students' silliness - especially in private colleges. Like I say, think of your students not as university students in the sense you understand the term, but as pubescent girls and boys. That will make their shenanigans a lot easier for you to put up with.

[veiledsentiments]

Many many years ago when I got my first degree in secondary education, I student taught 7th grade (12-14 year olds) for the usual 6 week stretch done under the American system. It was perfect preparation for the average university foundations student maturity level.

VS

[Grendal]

Hi All,

I just teach the ones that really want to learn and not pay too much attention to the ones that are chatty and negligent. I try to separate the good ones by putting them in groups that also want to learn. I also make sure that there is one strong student in each group of willing learners and that way I can deliver a lesson plan without too much headache. The chatty table will sometime disrupt the class and I usually give the whole class homework when this happens. They quiet down the next week but seem to forget their punishment and this gets repeated until the chatty group realizes what's really happening and starts to study, usually a bit too late.

Grendal

[DedicatedTeacher]

I worked at the SABIS school in Erbil. My experience with students was a lack of work ethic. They do not try and the only people that care are the teachers and the administration. The teachers care because they want to help the students. The administration cares because they don't want to look bad in front of their bosses. Parents try to complain that the lack of work ethic among some of the students is hurting the school yet the school blames the teachers and the parents.

Discipline is effective if everyone is on the same page, but for profit school put their profits before everything else.

[sainthood]

Query: here, in China, if they're late, they sing a song (English, of course!). If I hear Chinese in class, there's punishment (nothing hard, just embarrassing ). But, if they don't want to learn, or are disruptive, or really bad, and don't do homework, I will kick them out...

This week, I'm trying to get them ashamed of being lazy little $#!+s, cos they're wasting their parents money... And telling them they're no longer children, but adults!

Will those sort of things work in ME?

[veiledsentiments]

[spiral78]

I can't imagine forcing my Saudi students to sing anything!! They actually are adults, though....well, at least 19 and up, and we treat them as adults by default. Nor are their parents paying.

I think Asia and the ME are very different worlds in classroom contexts.